THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 47
for twelve years, it gave them space to de-
velop their institutions. "The no-fly zone
was one of the most e cient and hu-
mane uses of power in the history of
American foreign policy,"Galbraith said.
The Kurds saw an opportunity early. In
1991, with the Iraqi Army gone, Barzani
announced elections for a new Kurdish
parliament, a prototype for the state he
intended to build. Something else had
changed, too: for the first time in his
adult life, he stopped carrying a gun. In a
speech he made at the time, he said, "We
need to show the whole world that Kurds
are not just brave and good at fighting
but also good at respecting the law."
When I met Barzani in his o ce
in the town of Salahuddin, on a
sweltering afternoon, he cut an almost
elfin figure. At sixty-eight, he is short
and squat, with a round, animated face
and an easy smile that suggested the
egalitarian openness of a guerrilla com-
mander. He wore a red-and-white
Kurdish turban, called a jamadani, and
the traditional peshmerga outfit of
baggy pants and a tunic, held tight by a
corset designed to support the back on
mountain treks. Barzani told me that
he goes for long hikes in the Kurdish
countryside, sometimes spending the
night in the open air. He figures that he
has spent at least half his life in the
mountains, as a refugee and as a guer-
rilla leader. "It was a very beautiful life
name peshmerga means "those who face death," and the Kurdish army is known throughout the region for its ferocity.